Ramni – King Knish is the only Bay Area artisan food producer dedicated to making the popular Eastern European snack food.

Ramni

King Knish

Ramni’s story

After successfully repaying my first Kiva loan of 5000$ funded by 118 amazing lenders we’ve been invited to go for our second 5000$ loan. We are hoping to fund this quickly and urge you to be a part of the King Knish movement!

Chef Ramni Levy’s unique knish creations are a reflection of his eclectic background in fashion, event planning, and culinary curiosity. Ramni moved to San Francisco in the late 1990s after stops in two other premier food cities, New Orleans and Manhattan. He opened Bistro 1650, a small restaurant in the City’s Richmond District. Ramni successfully sold Bistro 1650 to move into catering which led him to found King Knish in October 2012, an “old world dish with a new world twist”.

During Ramni’s Bistro 1650 years he learned more through experimentation and research. In 2005 Ramni sold Bistro 1650 to fully dedicate himself to the art of catering. After the past few years in the private catering industry, Ramni launched King Knish at San Francisco’s popular 2012 Fleet Week Event, serving knish to leaders from some of the Bay Area’s premier business, community, and civic organizations.

Ramni’s vision for King Knish is to take his unique twist on this traditional Eastern European food and introduce it to new audiences in major cities through events, boutique food purveyors as well wholesale and retail distribution.

In just one year, through his passion, dedication, and experience as a self-made chef, Ramni has transformed King Knish from an idea into a tasty reality that 1,000s of people throughout the Bay Area have come to enjoy.

I am excited to introduce this new venture to Kiva Zip lenders and hope that they will share in my continued development and growth.

This loan is special because:

It supports this Eastern European snack business located in South San Francisco.

Kiva staff

More about this loan

Business Description

King Knish is the only Bay Area artisan food producer dedicated to making the popular Eastern European snack food. Our delicious knish is a puff pastry that is always baked, never fried, consisting of a flaky outer crust that is filled with a variety of mouth watering flavor combinations from the classic potato knish to pastrami and potato. King Knish blends forward-thinking recipes with “Old World” history and traditional techniques of making knish to create a truly unique product with broad market appeal.

King Knish successfully launched last year at a premier Fleet Week event in San Francisco and has been growing ever since.

The biggest challenge is creating awareness for this Eastern European snack food.

We serve corporate, retail and individual customers who have a taste for creative, innovative, healthily local food alternatives.

The principal goal of King Knish is to fuel exponential growth, awareness and education of this contemporary product line.

We are extremely proud of the excitement, enthusiasm and acceptance of this Eastern European snack food with a twist, King Knish.

What is the purpose of this loan?

This loan will help further the production and advancement of King Knish through the hiring of staff, purchase of goods, as well as building out our new and improved booth at the CUESA Farmers Market at the San Francisco Ferry PLaza.